It's just annoying advertising that will turn people away. It's not like the Apple store where you go to buy useful things. It's boring adverts about products that you wouldn't want to see if you could help it.

How will it work? Candidate applications will be submitted via a simple web site, evaluated by Sun for safety and content, then presented under free or fee terms to the broad Java audience via our update mechanism.

That ubiquity has obvious value to search companies, but it's also quite valuable to banks looking to sign up new accounts, sports franchises looking for new viewers, media companies and news organizations looking for new subscribers - basically, any Java developer looking to escape the browser to reach a billion or so consumers.

So basically the Java Updater is going to be used for advertising?Not sure I'm terribly excited by that...Simon

Sigh. Did you read the blog? I know, Jonathan can be confusing, but please.

All he should have said: 1. Sun is making money off distribution of Java runtime (by offering partner products during java install) - this has been going on for a couple of years at least 2. Sun will be offering a store for Java applications, distributed with the Java runtime. YOU can submit your app and perhaps make money.

I found it 'interesting' to see how Sun maintains that the consumer's business is not their main point of focus while at the same time they claim they're starting the biggest app store targetting the consumer's market.Is that just confused P.R. or a real lack of focus?

However, I do think they might be onto something if they really do it right. And if it works out well (which I hope it will), it could be a really positive thing for us.I also feel it proves once again (after finally fixing the applet experience) that Sun does take desktop java more and more seriously.

Anyway, I'll stay positive about it at least until we know more about it after JavaONE.

If Sun aren't interested in consumers then we wouldn't have JavaFX. There's something going on behind the scenes. It's not really Sun's call any more though - Oracles motives are the important ones and the only things they were after were Solaris and Java.

It sound like sun's too protective, "we are doing this but it's not our main focus" tis like they are already planning their escape before they even enter the game or something. That or you have two groups try to push their own strategy, which just ends up just making it bad for everyone, or something... anyways enough with the doom and gloom. if any of those problems are really there, then the Oracle business will sort it. Might be a painfull process but yeah.

A steam like platform has big potential. But the updater should be made a hell of a lot more decent. I want at home atleast the option of bug me not just keep everything up-to-date. Also as Mr Melissinos pointed out it should be piss easy to spend money. which is going to mean that they should look at supporting the widest variety of payment methods etc. (like everyone pays with credit cards) And quality control from front to back, top to bottom. This isn't one of those things where you can compensate with great technology.

It's adleast good to hear that things haven't come to a halt pending the Oracle ordeal.

It's just annoying advertising that will turn people away. It's not like the Apple store where you go to buy useful things. It's boring adverts about products that you wouldn't want to see if you could help it.

May I ask how you would know this before you even saw what apps would be available?

This sounds all good and feel positive about that too. One keep point to me though is about marketing/advertising: I'm eager to know how that app store will get advertised? It's great to have a good product but if marketing/advertising isn't strong enough then success is risky. Anyway, I speak too much as we all need to wait for the announcement, details and see how it goes.

Sound interesting but yeah, the details are vague. There are tons of questions on user experience, the infrastructure, etc. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I wonder what the store is written in - HTML/AJAX or a Java app? If it's JavaFX, it will be nice to see Sun eat it's own dog food.

Also I'd like to see comparison of the Java Store to services like BMTmicro, Kagi, etc.

May I ask how you would know this before you even saw what apps would be available?

Quote

That ubiquity has obvious value to search companies, but it's also quite valuable to banks looking to sign up new accounts, sports franchises looking for new viewers, media companies and news organizations looking for new subscribers - basically, any Java developer looking to escape the browser to reach a billion or so consumers.

Like I quoted from J Schwartz above, he says that instead of advertising the google toolbar, the java updater will advertise a new bank account. woot woot. From what Dmitri says it sounds like J Schwartz is not describing it properly though.... let's hope!

When you discover that the visitor has no Java, you have to drag him to the download site to provide him with a decent JRE.This is very annoying to the casual visitor already. He has to install things, click through a few security warnings and OK buttons.

And now Sun is going to distract them from your website, by showing the wonderful App Store with lots of slick games??!No thank you! It was hard enough already! Don't steal my visitors!

It's just cashing in quickly, but nobody thinks about the long term user experience.Let's see how long it takes to go down like RealPlayer.

Hi, appreciate more people! Σ ♥ = ¾Learn how to award medals... and work your way up the social rankings!

My games drive people to my website anyway - not so much of a problem. However I've had a lot of trouble convincing people to pay for Webstarted applications (tried it a few years ago - only had webstarted version up - conversion rate plummeted).

Installing a good JVM isn't too much of a problem on Windows for most users - it's as quick and painless as Flash. MacOS and Linux are boned though.

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